1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a power management method and apparatus for use in electronic devices. It is particularly applicable to combination devices powered by batteries comprising one portion which acts as a master and another portion which acts as a slave. Devices combining handheld computers (such as personal digital assistants) together with cellular telephones, pagers and other portable radio devices are examples of such combination devices.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Power management for handheld devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), cellular telephones and handheld computers present distinct problems to be resolved. Two problems in particular must be addressed: battery life and the protection of data stored in the device. Battery life is addressed by a number of different methods of reducing a device's power consumption, including causing the device to shut down (i.e. enter a low power consumption state) when not in use, referred to as going into a ‘sleep’ mode, and by causing devices such as cellular telephones to camp, i.e., cycle on and off many times a minute, switching on only very briefly to determine if a call or message is being transmitted to the cellular telephone.
Certain types of electronic data storage, for example random access memories or RAM, typically require that the device retain some electrical charge in its batteries to preserve stored data—if the battery is completely discharged, the data will be lost. To avoid loss of data, it is therefore common for such electronic devices to shut down completely before a certain minimum safe battery charge is reached. Alternatively, some devices, such as the Psion® 5mx have a secondary battery to protect memory—though this device also shuts down at a minimum battery charge. While such shut-down arrangements are an effective way of protecting memory, they are extremely irritating to users, since they necessarily inhibit access to the functions of the device; premature shut down, i.e., a shut down before a critical battery energy level is reached, is yet more irritating and therefore undesirable.
Many such portable devices also use rechargeable batteries. However, rechargeable batteries' characteristics (including the amount of energy they can store and provide) for a given charge vary (i) across their lifespan; (ii) because users often have second or replacement batteries; and (iii) because manufacturing of such batteries often does not produce batteries with consistent characteristics.
Combining two different types of consumer electronic device, such as a handheld computer and a cellular telephone (or a wireless LAN emitter), into a single device (a so-called “one-box” solution) presents special difficulties. First, the power conservation strategies followed by the devices are different—the cellular telephone camps, i.e., constantly cycles on and off—while the handheld computer will typically sleep or power down to preserve power. Nonetheless, both devices will typically be powered by a single battery. Secondly, one device must usually be the dominant or controlling device, i.e., the ‘master’, and the other device the subordinate or controlled device, usually referred to as the ‘slave’. Usually it is the master which will control system memory and determine when power levels have reached a critically low level, requiring a complete shut down of the device so as to protect system memory. However, if the master is the handheld computer component of the device, it will not normally be able to monitor power levels while it is in a sleep state, although the cellular telephone radio component, which is camping, will continue to consume electrical power.
As a practical matter, the handheld computer component must normally be the master and will supply most of the principal telephone functions and features, while the functions of the cellular radio component must be limited. Thus it is the handheld computer component that would usually dial calls, decide to accept calls, display data, maintain memory, configure the telephone and control power. The slave cellular radio component would usually provide signal transmission/reception as well as camping. It may have limited power management to ensure minimal transmission quality, i.e., inhibiting the cellular radio from operation if the instantaneously available power levels are too low to transmit a signal of acceptable quality. In addition, some cellular standards such as the GSM standard allow the cellular radio to vary its transmission power depending on conditions in a given cell (e.g., distance from cellular mast), a useful facility which has the drawback of also varying power consumption by the slave device, leading to uncertain energy consumption rates.
While we have described the power management problems associated with a combined handheld computer and cellular telephone, numerous master/slave arrangements raise the same or similar problems, including devices combining handheld computers with wireless LAN radios such as radios operating on the IEEE 802.11 standard or the Bluetooth® standard.